Bertie and Affie—princes, but so unlike their adored papa

Press, 11 August 1979, Page 15

Bertie and Affie—princes, but so unlike their adored papa

By

ROSEMARY BRITTEN

Recent television senes have taken us into the private lives of several generations of the British royal ' family. We have been made free of their loves and fears, their journeys and their deaths. This familiarity must be one of the causes of that lessening of respect, almost reverence, for the Crown which was once so general. Now, the daughter of our reigning monarch can visit us, and her presence causes barely a flicker of interest. We have come to realise that these are people not unlike ourselves, with problems much like our own.

Queen Victoria, with her large brood of children, had more problems than most. Plunged into grief and despair with the death of Prince Albert in 1861, she immediately had to deal with politics and decisions for all of which she had relied on her husband.

She wrote miserably to her daughter,. “I who always hated business, have now nothing but that! Public and private, it falls upon me. He, my own darling, lightened all and every thing, spared every trouble and anxiety and now I must labour alone!”

Alone, she had to oversee the futures of her nine

children, then aged between 21 and four-years-old. The eldest, Princess Victoria, had already been married for four years to the Crown Prince of Prussia. Her eldest son, the Queen’s favourite grandchild, would later become Kaiser William II of Germany, something which must have caused more bitterness between cousins than most families can claim.

No-one who saw the series “Edward VII” can be unaware of the Prince of Wales’ weakness for a pretty face. His • first amorous adventures became known to his parents just before his father’s death. The Queen laid the blame for the fatal illness squarely on the Prince’s shoulders, as she was convinced that the illness was brought on by Albert’s distress over his son’s misbehaviour. She wrote that she could not bear to have Bertie near her, and could not look at him without a shudder. It was years before she could bring herself to treat him normally again. Negotiations were under way at the time for the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Denmark, and the Queen was anxious that stories about him should not reach the royal Danish

ears before things were settled. She was uneasy about this alliance with Denmark, much preferring “the dear Germans.” In Bertie’s case, Alexandra was thought to be so right for him that she was accepted despite misgivings about her family. In the confused politics of Europe in the 1860 s, the Queen must have found her family and political loyalties strained. She was much criticised for her attitude to the Dano-Prussian war. Here she found herself in a very difficult position, with her eldest daughter married to the Crown Prince of Prussia and her eldest son to the daughter of the King of Denmark.

As the rest of her family grew up, the Queen busied herself combing the royal houses of Europe for suitable marriage partners. No easy task, this, though the world was more full of princes and princesses than it is now.

The Queen was successful in obtaining German spouses for some of her other children. Princess Alice, 17 when her father died, had been engaged for a year to Prince Louis of Hesse and another year later, reluctantly but dutifully, was married to him. The young Prince Arthur married Princess Louise of Prussia, and much later

Beatrice, the youngest, married Prince Henry of Battenburg. In the turmoil of her emotions after Prince Albert’s death. Queen Victoria seemed able to take some comfort from her daughters and her two young sons, who were only 11 and eight at the time. The two older sons, 20-year-old Bertie (Albert Edward, Prince of Wales

and 17-year-old Affie (Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh),were a different matter. They were growing up, they shared the same disreputable tastes in women, and they were a constant reminder to the Queen of all she had lost. They both resembled the Prince Consort in looks, and she continually held him up as an example. Perfect, adored Papa — he was a difficult model for any young man to follow. The Queen was ever reluctant to give her sons responsibility. Not long after Prince Albert’s death, the Greek people voted overwhelmingly for Alfred to take the throne of Greece, but the Queen put down her royal foot very firmly. Upon no earthly account and under no circumstances would she

ever assent to it, she told a member of the government At the time of the marriage of Lenchen (Princess Helena) to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, it had been suggested that she be given away by one of her elder brothers. The Queen was shocked and indignant. “How could anyone believe or even think I would ask Bertie

or Affie to give away Lenchen.” she said. “I would never let one of my sons take their father’s place while I live.” She gave the bride away herself. Queen Victoria was a woman of violent likes and dislikes and these two sons moved in and out of their mother’s favour as her emotions swung wildly from one extreme to the other. Often one went up in her estimation as the other went down. At a time when she could not bear to have Bertie near her, she wrote of Alfred, “our darling boy, so like his beloved father, so clever and talented and excessively amiable." A few years later she wrote, “Yes, Affie is a great, great grief — andf I may say source of bitter anger for

he is not led astray. His conduct is gratuitous! Oh! he is so different to dear Bertie, who is so loving and affectionate and anxious to do well, though he is sometimes imprudent — but that is all.”

Part of this great grief was Alfred’s refusal to marry a suitable wife. With Bertie safely married to Alexandra, the Queen could turn her attention to Affie, who was causing her similar concern. Her remedy for her sons’ moral lapses was to marry them off as quickly as possible, partly in the hope that a good woman would steady and reform them, and partly to lend them an air of respectability. While Bertie had fallen in with her plans, Affie proved unco-operative. He kept falling in love with quite unsuitable ladies, usually older than himself and not royal. Accordingly he showed no interest in the parade of attractive, healthy and eligible princesses his mother produced. She sent him around Europe to meet the young ladies and their families and became more and more irritated as he returned unimpressed. The young prince travelled a good deal, visiting the far east and India, Australia and New Zealand. One reason for this

was simply to keep him out of London, which the Queen felt held too many temptations for him.

Unlike Bertie, who was brought up by a phalanx of tutors, Prince Alfred had a naval education, and in 1867 he was given command of his Own ship, H.M.S. Galatea. He was to visit Australia and New Zealand in 1868, but the tour came to an abrupt end in Sydney when he was shot in the back by an Irishman who felt strongly about the troubles at Home. Recovered, he visited New Zealand in 1869 and made a triumphal progress through the country. He was our first royal visitor and was received with great joy and utterly without criticism, which must have been cheering for him.

The Prince was now 25 and the Queen was becoming desperate. She saw his prospective brides, selected with such care, happily marrying lesser princes all over Europe. She wrote, “Everyone feels anxious that he should settle when he returns, and the object is one of such importance for himself and for us all that if he can only find a Princess likely to suit and please him I would not mind who she was.” In fact he did nett marry

till 1874, and then his bride was Grand-Duchess Marie df Russia, the 20-year-old daughter of Czar Alexander IL The Queen was not eager to join her family with that of Russia, and had objected on the grounds of religion, but she must have been so relieved that her son was prepared to settle down at tact. Sb» nut her objections behind her and even umie out of her seclusion

to appear at some of the celebrations. By this time all but her youngest children were married, more or less to her satisfaction. She had an ever-increasing flock of grandchildren, but was not a doting grandmother. On the birth of a fourth child to the Prince and Princess of Wales she commented, “the fourteenth grandchild becomes a very uninteresting thing — for it seems

to me to go on and on like the rabbits tn Windsor Park.” We must feel now that we know our royal family and their forbears quite well. It would be a pity to lose all the dignity and mystique of royalty in this new casualness. We know that though royal, they are also human. Let us not forget that though human, they are also royal.